"Personally, I don't want to stop Street Fighter''s main numbered series at 'IV,' Realistically speaking, developing a title for next-gen consoles requires a huge amount of staff members, and a large sum of money."

"The issue of money also applies to everyone else, as it'll be required to invest in a new console, game, and arcade stick," he said. "If you look at fighting games as a competitive sport, one might say the more players, the better. Going [free-to-play] lowers the hurdle of needing money to start, which I believe is one of the ideal parts about it."

"When thinking about games as a product, it boils down to how much the company intends to spend in order to make it, and how much the players will likely spend on it, and the balance between the two is very important," Ono continued. "For example, back in Street Fighter II, one play was 100, 200 yen, which was enough to cover the development cost; however, those costs are now much higher than what players would imagine."

"At the moment, I don’t have a clear vision of how we can balance the two.”

Sucks. It's another sign that developing for major console releases, and their attached astronmoical budgets, are hurdles that developers need to find a way around.

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